Yamma
The music of Yemenite Jews
Two thousand years of tradition
TEIMAN is the Hebrew word for Yemen.
The Yamma Ensemble’s TEIMAN project brings to the spotlight the music of an ancient
and long-researched tradition: the Yemenite Jews, who lived in Yemen for two thousand years.
The songs of the Yemenite women, sung in Yemenite Arabic, were not attributed much value and people were even advised against listening to them. While the men’s songs were preserved and considered sublime—requiring education, knowledge in Hebrew cantillation, and practiced ritual readings of the Hebrew bible – the women’s songs were mostly a refuge for emotional expression and relief.
The songs of the Yemenite women were passed down from mother to daughter, and this oral transmission was the main way for generations of women to preserve their singing and songs.
Men sang texts from the Holy Scriptures, from the Torah, from the Diwan (the Yemenite prayer book): songs of praise to God, verses of psalms, songs of holidays and festivals, and songs of longing for Zion and Jerusalem.
Women sang in Yemenite Arabic, expressing what was in their hearts and on their minds. Songs of love and passion, protest, encouragement, and empowerment amidst times of distress and heartache.
Focusing the Jewish women in Yemen
The Jewish community in Yemen lived under a strict Muslim regime, within which they adhered to rigid social codes. This patriarchal and conservative social structure dictated the status of the Jewish woman, who was often forced to accept situations against her will. Her freedom was limited, if she had any freedom at all. Life for the Jewish woman in the Yemenite community was full of challenges and difficulties.
In her songs, however, she had complete freedom.
These powerful women – who never had the privilege to learn to read and write, who bravely bore the burden of raising children, housekeeping, and taking care of their family – poured into their daily singing their countless pains, joys, sorrows, difficulties, despairs, and frustrations, as well as their love, passion, dreams, hopes, emotions, and feelings.
They sang daily, during their routine lives and on holidays.
Singing served as a tool for emotional relief as they toiled for long hours, grinding the grain while the other members of their house slept. The singing that was never preserved or written down, but passed down from generation to generation, is in fact a living testimony: the only one in existence that enables a glimpse into the Yemenite home; into familial relationships, into the souls of women and young girls.
Yamma TEIMAN's music
The Yamma Ensemble has been joined by new members who specialize in Yemenite music. Together we have recorded the TEIMAN project, an album dedicated to the music of Jewish Yemenite women. Our musical choices and adaptations have been carefully designed with a deep desire to trace the motifs, elements, and characteristics of authentic, traditional Yemenite music. Distinctive tunes and rhythms, accompanied by multiple percussion instruments.
Love songs, wedding songs, songs of longing and dedication.
All these make this colorful repertoire a wholly tribal experience, honoring an ancient, fascinating, and beautiful tradition.
The instruments we play
The Yemenite Jews, who lived as an insular and closed community, followed strict laws that forbade Jews from playing music following the destruction of the Temple.
Due to the prohibition against playing musical instruments, Jewish Yemenite singing was therefore traditionally accompanied using only a can. However, on their first album, the
Yamma Ensemble used various traditional Middle Eastern instruments, including the
Oud, Ney, and Darbuka, as well as the bass.
The use of the Oud, Ney, and other Middle Eastern instruments are inspired by the influence of Muslim music, offering a glimpse into the cultural and musical atmosphere in which the Yemenite women’s singing took place.
The rhythm of Yemenite music is very different from other Arabic styles in that it has an emphasized playback: the drums are sometimes played on metal plates or other copper objects, and the Oud almost escorts the drum section.
The focus is around rhythm and is much less concerned with solos or virtuosic vocals.
Click on the images below for a short introduction.
The most researched Jewish community
How did the Yemenite Jewish community become the most researched community
among all the Jewish communities?
The Yemenite Jewish community has been extensively researched, and even nowadays researchers find it fascinating and attractive.
There is archaeological evidence of Jewish life in Yemen dating back to approximately 200 AD. Some claim that the community is more ancient, and that it existed in the time of the Second Temple, or even in the days of the First Temple.
The Jews of Yemen did not interact with other communities and remained relatively isolated from the rest of the Jewish world for many generations. The separation and differentiation resulted in the preservation of ancient Jewish tradition.
The Yemenite prayers, Jewish law, customs, and way of life were well-established in the ancient sources. Unlike other Jewish communities around the world, the Yemenite Jews did not adapt or create new laws in later generations.
The Yemenite Torah book is considered the most accurate and is the only one that is completely identical to the most important manuscript: the Aleppo Codex.
In a scientific study of the DNA of the Israelite community, it was revealed that the Yemenite Jews are the closest to the Jews who lived in the ancient Land of Israel two thousand years ago.